Jul 24, 2014

On Trying to Look Like a Scholar

Twain
(right) all had something to say on Science and on Academic Life

00000000000000000000000000000000000

The first part of “OnTrying
to

Look Like
a Scholar” was initially

published at “The Aquarian Theosophist”,

May 2006 edition, Supplement,
p. 18. Its

second part appeared for the
first time in the same

journal, in November 2005 (Supplement),
pp. 16-17.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

1. The Temptation to Look Like
a Scholar

Mr.
Richard Hodgson, the author of the fake 1885 Report of the Society of Psychical
Research calling H.P. Blavatsky a fraud, happened to set a general pattern
later followed by researchers like John Algeo, K. Paul Johnson, Daniel Caldwell
and others.

Although these authors and compilers defend different views in a number
of ways, they all have some fundamental ground in common. They may have cared too much
for their personal images as “scholars” and “men of science”. They became prisoners of their own images as
academics, and as people who are
supposed to behave as if they had “modern and skeptic minds”.

In a text significantly called
“Judges or Calumniators?”, H.P. Blavatsky writes something which
perfectly applies to what we see in a handful of pseudo-scholars who were active in the last few decades:

“A little logic, please, Messrs. Judges and Slanderers. How could the
London Psychical Research Society pronounce in favour of all the phenomena
described in ‘The Occult World’ [1] and elsewhere without risking its title of
‘scientific’? How would its acceptance
of all that was attributed to me by the
phenomenalists have been received by the scientists who deny wholesale the
existence of intelligent forces outside of man? It was a question of life or
death, of the to be or not to be of Hamlet. (...) One or the other: (a) either to declare publicly that the charges of the Coulomb lady
were inventions (...) and be flooded in
a flood of ridicule, forever losing caste, as they say in India ; or (b) sailing with the current, it would
have to proclaim, in order to keep from
sinking, that all the phenomena, the Mahâtmans and their agents, were a huge
imposture.” [2]

A deep desire to look like smart scientific guys is likely to be also a
significant part of the motivation of the 21st century Soloviofs, Hodgsons, Sidgwicks and Coulombs.
This is no true scholarship,
though, and it does not help true scientific research. But how could it be possible that people
well-acquainted with theosophical literature - like John Algeo and Daniel
Caldwell - would start publishing ill-disguised
collections of libels against HPB? They did this with remarkable ease of
manners, as if circulating obvious lies
against HPB were perfectly acceptable in theosophical circles. In fact, it might
be a form of jesuitry, possibly unconscious.

2. Do Real Scholars Circulate Libels?

Such an “editorial policy” could not be ascribed to any inclination on
the part of such scholars to act like
men of science. One does not need to know much about universities to perceive
that they are not in the business of
publishing libels against great people who lived in the past. University and
academic life is no excuse for publishing lies against H.P. Blavatsky or Masters
of the Wisdom.

Theosophy needs independent researchers, and it is not difficult for theosophists
to see the failings of modern academic
life. They are not entirely new. A long time ago, North-American author Mark
Twain had his reasons to clarify:

“I never allowed school to interfere with my studies”.

And it is said that Irish thinker George Bernard Shaw confessed:

“At a certain moment, I had to interrupt my education to enter
University”.

Twain and Shaw were not alone: while referring to the pedagogical
methods based on examinations, adopted by modern universities, Albert Einstein
said:

“Most teachers lose their time asking questions to discover that which
the student doesn’t know, while the
true art [of education] consists in discovering that which the student knows, or is able
to know”.[3]

Einstein adopted the platonic
view of education, according to which knowledge is to be found fundamentally
within, not outside, the learner. Most university teachers follow their
institutions in ignoring this basic principle of the search for knowledge and
wisdom.

Bernard Shaw questioned with these words that which one could call organized ignorance:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.” [4]geo
Johan t r ple ne, editors r HPB and f or
Truth. time and the stomach to read them should exam ine them in full.
angsterism

As to conventional academic life and “institutionalized knowledge”, Shaw
wrote:

“When a man teaches something he
does not know to somebody who has no aptitude for it, and gives him a
certificate of proficiency, the latter has completed the education of a
gentleman. A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into
superstition, and art into pedantry.
Hence University education.” [5]

geo
Johan t r ple ne, editors r HPB and f or
Truth. time and the stomach to read them should exam ine them in full.
angsterism

Although universities often have
a lot to learn before they can be more useful in teaching, academic scholars and editors are fundamentally
honest people. They never publish or
teach what they know to be false. There is a wide difference, therefore, between even the poorest academicism and any conscious intellectual falsehood, however
clever and disguised in academic language.

I will not repeat here the lies that John Algeo published in his illegitimate volume The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky (TPH,
Wheaton, 2003). Students who have the time - and the stomach - to read it should examine them in full to see whether
such libels can be tolerated by one who
has respect for Truth and ethics. [6]

What is the significance of remembering that there is no academic
support for the publishing of false information or personal libels against
great thinkers of humanity?

The fact is that Universities deserve our respect. In the long run, academic science, which includes History, is
an ally
to esoteric philosophy and occult science, as we see clearly stated in the Mahatma
Letters (see Letter 65 in the Chronological Edition, or Letter 11 in the
non-chronological editions).

There is an interesting statement about this issue in the Great Master’s Letter, which consists in
reality of a report made by one of the
Mahatmas about the Great Master’s (or Chohan’s) view on the
Theosophical movement.

The first paragraph of the document says:

“The doctrine we promulgate being the only true one, must - supported by
such evidence as we are preparing to give - become ultimately triumphant, like
every other truth. Yet it is absolutely necessary to inculcate it gradually;
enforcing its theories (unimpeachable facts for those who know) with direct
inferences, deduced from and corroborated by the evidence furnished by modern
exact science.” [7]

The paragraph makes it clear that in spite of many obstacles, modern and
conventional science is a natural partner for the theosophical movement in the
search for truth. The same, however, cannot be said of libelers, old and modern.

In September 2016, after
a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students
decided to form the Independent Lodge of
Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in
the different dimensions of life.